Think about a Washington during which President Trump was held to account. A Washington during which Congress doesn’t roll over like a canine begging for a deal with. A Washington that features the best way it’s alleged to, with that entire checks-and-balances factor working.
Engaging, no?
Democrats have to win simply three seats in 2026 to grab management of the Home and impose some measure of accountability on our rogue-elephant president. That’s one thing Trump is keenly conscious of, which is why he’s pushing Texas to take the extraordinary step of redrawing its congressional boundaries forward of the midterm election.
Republicans, who’ve exercised iron-clad management over Texas for many years, maintain 25 of Texas’ 38 congressional seats. A particular session scheduled subsequent week in Austin is aimed toward boosting that quantity by as many as 5 seats, growing the GOP’s odds of hanging onto the Home.
Enter, stage left, California’s White Home-lusting governor.
As a part of a current Southern marketing campaign swing, Gavin Newsom sat down with a progressive Tennessee podcaster to debate the Republican energy seize. (The picnic bench, rolled up shirt sleeves, beer and f-bomb confirmed the governor was being genuine, in case there was any doubt.)
“They’re not f——ing round now. They’re taking part in by a very totally different algorithm,” Newsom mentioned of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his fellow Republicans. Years in the past, he famous, California created an unbiased fee to attract its political strains, which states usually do as soon as a decade after new census figures come out.
However with a super-majority in Sacramento, Newsom mentioned, Democrats may “gerrymander like no different state.”
“We’ve been taking part in honest,” he continued, however Abbott’s actions “made me query that whole program.” Later, elaborating on social media, the governor accused Republicans of dishonest their strategy to further Home seats and warned, “CA is watching — and you’ll guess we gained’t stand idly by.”
There’s a Texas expression for that: All hat and no cattle.
The actual fact is, voters took the facility of political line-drawing away from the governor and his fellow lawmakers, for good purpose, and it’s not like Newsom can unilaterally take that energy again — irrespective of how properly his chesty swagger may play with Trump-loathing Democrats.
“We now have a fee,” mentioned Justin Levitt, an knowledgeable on redistricting legislation at Loyola Regulation College. “Not solely that, a Structure and the fee’s within the Structure. And never solely that, we’ve got a Structure that claims you solely get to redistrict as soon as each 10 years, except there’s a authorized downside with the prevailing maps.”
In different phrases, it’s lower than Newsom to huff and puff and blow present Home districts down.
California voters accepted Proposition 20, which turned congressional line-drawing over to a nonpartisan, 14-member fee, in November 2010. The purpose was to introduce competitors by taking redistricting away from self-dealing lawmakers. It handed by an amazing margin, 61% to 39%, and has labored simply as supposed.
After many years of pre-baked congressional contests, when the success of 1 social gathering or the opposite was just about assured, California has turn into a hotbed of competitors; in recent times, the state — an afterthought in November balloting for president — has been key to regulate of the Home. In 2026, as many as a dozen seats, out of 52, may very well be not less than considerably aggressive.
“I believe it’s labored out nice,” mentioned Sara Sadhwani, an assistant politics professor at Pomona School and a member of the redistricting fee (Others doing the map-making included a seminary professor, a structural engineer and an investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division.)
There are two methods, Levitt mentioned, that Newsom and fellow Democrats may undo the fee’s handiwork.
They may break the legislation and move laws drawing new strains, face an inevitable lawsuit and prevail with a sympathetic ruling from the California Supreme Court docket. Or they may ask voters to approve totally different strains by means of a brand new constitutional modification, in a hurried-up particular election forward of the 2026 midterms.
Each situations appear as believable as Newsom delivering common healthcare and fulfilling his pledge to construct 3.5 million new properties a yr, to call two different extravagant guarantees.
To be clear, not one of the above condones the plot that Trump and Abbott are trying to hatch. Their actions are politically ruthless and greater than just a little cynical. (A letter from Trump’s hand-in-glove Justice Division has offered a authorized fig leaf for the particular session. Texas was just lately — expediently — notified that 4 of its majority-minority congressional districts had been unconstitutionally gerrymandered alongside racial strains, thus justifying the drawing of a brand new map.)
That’s no excuse, nevertheless, for Newsom to end-run California voters, or name a particular election that might price tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} at a time the state is gushing pink ink.
Politics rooted in vengeance is each harmful and fallacious, whether or not it’s Trump or Newsom trying to settle scores.
There’s additionally the matter of delivering vacant threats. Some Democrats might thrill every time Newsom delivers considered one of his pugnacious pronouncements. That appears to be an enormous a part of his presidential marketing campaign technique. However those self same voters might tire of the shortage of observe by means of, as Californians have.
Newsom has a well-deserved repute for over-promising and under-delivering.
That’s not more likely to serve him properly on the nationwide stage.
